Jesse Winchester’s final album, A Reasonable Amount of Trouble (produced by Mac McAnally), will be released on September 16. (via press release)

Zavitson Music Group, current owners of Cowboy Jack Clement’s home/studio, have proposed that the City of Nashville designate the building as a neighborhood landmark in order to get around current zoning codes that make it illegal to operate a business out of a home. Nate Rau (The Tennessean) writes that doing so “would preserve its commercial use and allow the company to move its offices there and start using the recording studio. To achieve the designation, the property must establish its cultural significance, work through zoning issues such as parking with Metro and receive approval from the Planning Commission.”

Elias Leight of The Atlantic writes that the compilation Country Funk, Vol. 2 shows that “country music has always been more progressive than it is often given credit for.”

Here’s a video for Randy Travis’s cover of “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me.”

Juli Thanki is the editor of Engine 145 and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, Bluegrass Unlimited, and M Music & Musicians Magazine. In 2011 she received the International Bluegrass Music Association Print Media Person of the Year award.

6 Comments

Thank you for linking to my discussion. To clarify, they’re not so much my favorite Dad songs, but rather, songs about bad dads.:)

Erik North
August 1, 2014 at 10:02 am

I like that list of country songs that Laura Cantrell drew up for people who are suspicious of the genre. Several of them are established classics, and it’s the best way to get people into the form…not this so-called “bro country” junk.

numberonecountryfan
August 2, 2014 at 9:30 am

Not a bad version of Don’t Worry by Randy Travis. However, I did miss the fuzztone of the original by Marty Robbins. Loved Travis’ version of Singing The Blues off his No Holdin’ Back CD of 1989.

luckyoldsun
August 2, 2014 at 7:58 pm

•Here’s a video for Randy Travis’s cover of “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me.”

If playing the audio track over some random film footage qualifies as a “video” of the song, then that’s indeed a video.

Erik North
August 4, 2014 at 10:31 am

The irony is that the fuzz tone on Marty Robbins’ original 1961 recording of “Don’t Worry” was the result of a malfunctioning speaker attached to the bass. It kind of gave it that early acid-rock feel, which helped the song reach #3 on the pop singles chart, as well as #1 on the C&W chart for, I think, a jaw-dropping ten weeks.